Serendipity...

After having written about aunts on my other blog, today I bumped into this excerpt while reading "War and Peace". Looks like, once again, Tolstoy was there before me...

"Everyone had to go through the same ceremony of greeting this old aunt whom not one of them knew or wanted to know or was interested in, while Anna Pavlovna in pensive silence solemnly observed and approved the exchange of formalities. Ma tante repeated the same words to each, asking after the visitor's health and reporting on her own and on that of her Majesty, 'who was better today, thank God'. Politely trying to betray no undue haste, her victims made their escape with a sense of relief at having performed a tiresome duty, and took care not to go near her again for the rest of the evening."